Lyth Color Theme for VS Code

This is a work-in-progress attempt at a VS Code color theme that would offer decent semantic highlighting for C++.

I have yet to test this with any other languages (JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Markdown, etc.)

Building / Debugging

To build, run

npm run build

or, to watch for changes and rebuild automatically, run

npm run watch

then F5 to open a new editor window with debugger attached.

Installing

npm run install

This will look for .vscode and .cursor directories in your home path and copy the theme there.

Setup

The project is meant to facilitate creation of multiple themes using relatively short color palette definitions in src/defs.

• In package.json, the contributes.themes points should list all the themes you want to build.
• src/defs should contain .ts files with palette definitions. The file names should match the .json file name at contributes.themes[].path in package.json.

Notes

Token scopes differ depending on the language server used (clangd or cpptools). As of Jan 2025, the former seems to be better in terms of semantic tokens, but for textmate scopes the latter can sometimes be more informative. Overall, it's a bit of a hit and miss for both. I'm currently using clangd, so that's the focus for now.

Goals / Considerations

• Neutral gray backgrounds to reduce messing with perception of color temperature in app GUIs and graphics
• Stuff like & for references and * for pointers should be contrasting enough to easily notice
• Differentiate class / class template declarations and definitions from instantinations using bold style, same for functions declarations and calls
• Differentiate local variables, member variables and funciton arguments if possible (maybe make globals stand out as well?)
• Try to avoid making all keywords, casts etc. a big purple mess
• Obviously, macros should be easily distinguishable (maybe differentiate macros definitions from 'calls' as well?)
• Could be great if we'll be able to differentiate between e.g. const and non-const methods e.g. using italics (doesn't seem to be possible as of now)